theairlock | Week 5

Entry tags:

!round 2,
!week 5

Week 5

[As with the weeks before, life in the Fantasy Sweet returns to something resembling normalcy with shocking efficiency. The second floor rest area and ~~Adventure Zone~~ Death Orb Room are spotless again, the demon glitter has been vacuumed, the deflated orbs have been replaced. It's like none of it ever happened, like three more friends aren't dead and stored away in the guest house morgue.

There's a new floor to explore, their "reward" for a job well done.]

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday

[ooc: Don't forget to to turn in your activity for week 4, submit your memory regains and put in your threads for the Benefactors!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Some people talk to the dead. If Church had thought their ghosts were hanging around, he'd be justified in doing so, but just dead as fuck bodies? Nah. On occasion he touches the glass of one, or reaches out to do so, or taps on with his knuckles. He has nothing to offer them. Maybe it's pointless, or looks pointless, or he's just hurting himself, but this place is quiet, off camera, alone, and he can face them.

He catches sight of Ardyn out of the corner of his eye, turns his head to look. Doesn't give any particular indication one way or the other, but fuck, if he's here to commiserate with the dead, too, he's hardly going to say no. It's not his fucking room.

Coming or going, Ardy?]

I didn't expect you'd be here. Don't worry, I'll leave you alone--I'm sure most of us have had quite enough from me for one day.

I'm not gonna chase you out. You've got as much right to be here as anyone else.

[Some people might disagree. Oh the fuck well.]

[There was a sharp, quiet sound that was something between a derisive scoff and an empty laugh, Ardyn hesitating before stepping inside to take up space against a wall near the door in silence.]

[As much right as anyone else? That was funny.]

[He doesn't want to get defensive, but too bad, he's doing it anyway, first just crossing his arms and staring at his own reflection in Mai's dome.]

If you think I'm wrong, then why bother coming? Were you going to sneak in while nobody was here?

You make it sound like I was going to do something terrible. Maybe I just wanted to find myself somewhere the rest of you were a bit less likely to be.

No, of course you're not going to do something-- [He drops his arms with a sigh.]

You want me to go? I've been here a bit. I can just leave you to it, if you want...some privacy or something.

If you're not going to chase me out, I see no reason to do the same. But you've no need to stay solely on my account, either.

I wasn't gonna.

[Hm. After a second, he wonders if that sounded bad. He is not, after all, good with words.

...But he won't clarify, because...fine. This place just feels like quiet. His head isn't quiet by any means, but it's almost calming. Maybe they should talk, though. About the meeting.

...Or he'll just move down the line. Next body, next friend or potential friend or at least ally lost.]

[Ardyn didn't say much of anything after that, looking at his right hand rather than Church or the still and silent corpses in the room. Eventually, he simply folded his arms and stood in silence as Church continued with what he was doing.]

[Being silent in a room of corpses by oneself is one thing. Being silent in a room of corpses with someone who has definitely had A Day but literally can't express that sort of thing is another. He starts getting agitated by the quiet instead of comforted. He makes his round all the way to Roland, and...

Look, he's not about to bitch at aaaaaanyone for the way they mourn or do anything to reacting about death, but the just standing there is just...

What if he just interrupts like an asshole by saying anything? Shit, what does he even say? He should just go. He should leave. Ardyn's made his choices, and Church is sticking by his side, and if he has to lose Queenie for it, then.........then that sucks and he doesn't need another loss.

He turns away from the pods, looks to the door like he'll leave, looks to Ardyn, looks at the floor. Bounces on the balls of his feet for a moment.]

Y'know, if it wasn't for your history, I'd ask if you prayed to any gods. [Never, ever expect Church to say smart things.] You almost look like you're waiting for something to happen.

...Not anymore. [That at least earned Church a brief glance, in the form of a deadpan 'are you kidding me' look.]

I'm not waiting for anything. Just...thinking.

[...]

You didn't have to defend me, Shield or otherwise.

...Yeah, I--yeah, good a place as any to think. Been doing a lot of that. For all the good it does.

Didn't have to, but I did. Didn't embarrass you or anything, did I? [He asks the lord of 10% at best emotions, and he's not sure embarrassment is even one of them.]

It's nothing like that, no. I just don't think I understand why. You know that she's right, so why even bother?

I want her to understand where I'm coming from. Why, in the face of a word like apocalypse, so many of us are willing to just let it slide.

..But she's right.

[That wasn't an argument, from the way it sounded; more like Ardyn was trying to figure out why everyone was ignoring a plain fact. The sky was blue, water was wet, and Ardyn Izunia was a horrible thing that masqueraded as a person.]

So many of you are glossing over what I want to do, and I can't truly understand why. One person couldn't possibly have meant more to all of you than the lives of a whole planet.

...This really bothers you doesn't it?

Nobody knows, okay? Not even you, not right now. If you've actually managed to fuck your whole planet over and kill every last person. Maybe you have. And maybe you'll remember that, and maybe you're a crazy miserable fuck who's no longer in any way, shape, or form a person.

Right now you're just a murderer with a raw deal, a lot of time to lose yourself and your sanity, and a suicidal plan that might fuck everyone up, might just fuck the crystal and gods up, or might only fuck you up and...actually save the world, kind of, actually, not that that's...the real intent here.

That's the problem--I don't think it bothers me at all. If every last one of you turned on me today, what would it matter? This group would fall in line with every single person I ever knew two thousand years ago, and in this case it would even make rational sense.

[Ardyn unfolded his arms; the Ring of the Lucii was still on his hand even now as he brushed his hair out of his eyes.]

...It was barely a few days ago, and yet that whole incident seems more like a very distant dream. I can remember every detail from worrying Junpei was infected, to enjoying myself at that absurd little gathering, to the miserable headache I had the next morning--but there's none of that left now. No matter how I concentrate, no matter how I try to reach for whatever may yet be left...I can't find it. There's just anger, frustration, and the desire to direct it at everything.

And I don't know how much of that is a man who was pushed past his breaking point and how much is the plague I've carried for far too long. I don't- [For just a moment, Ardyn broke off as though he wasn't sure where that sentence was meant to go, calm and collected tone sounding briefly unsteady.]

I want vengeance, Church, and I feel that with an all-encompassing desire I've never felt before. But after all of this, whatever I am placed so close to whatever I was...I don't...know what to do.

Edited 2017-06-13 05:01 (UTC)

[It's a sinking feeling that he works hard to hide. The idea, the knowing that it might all be gone. That maybe, truly, Ardyn was nothing more than the pale comparison of a man who felt nothing but hatred and a gnawing emptiness. Maybe getting it back had been the last straw, grinding Lucis Caelum down to nothing. Maybe the memory of his own history had pushed him past the edge. Maybe he was just destined to protect someone who truly didn't need or deserve it.

What's one more disappointment in his life anyway?

But then Ardyn falters, and it's the most...human thing he's ever heard the fallen king do or say since the trial.

There's still a lot missing. Thousands of years to develop the madness, to enact plans, to stew in the darkness of a thousand, a million angry voices, Omega stacked on Omega whispering about death and destruction, where even one nearly drew Tex off the edge. Maybe Ardyn will remember that, the massive yawning gap that truly exists between what he is and what he was, and that will just be that.

But for now?

He is not afraid on his approach, because Ardyn has long since stopped scaring him at least when it comes to his own safety. Catches the ringed hand with his own. He doesn't have an immediate answer, doesn't know what to tell Ardyn to do, but fuck, he was never able to tell Tex what to do anyway, so all he can do is...maybe help guide his way. He brings the hand to eye-level, powerless crystal glinting between them.]

Tell me what this means to you right now.

What are you-...

[He'd been almost hopeful when Junpei handed it back to him--with that magic he'd have been able to overthrow PAL with hardly an effort--and genuinely upset when it didn't answer it. The ring had always answered him, always reacted and responded when he needed it.]

[Until one day, it hadn't.]

[It was the symbol of all that he hated. The Crystal, Bahamut, the entire line of Lucis distilled into a simple black ring that should have held untold power. So why, Ardyn had been asking himself, couldn't he bring himself to just take it off and throw it into the middle of the garden as hard as he could? It wouldn't respond to a king it deemed unworthy; more likely it would burn his entire arm off if its power ever returned.]

...It's everything that should have been mine. All that I was and all that I wanted to be. I hate the Crystal, as well as the gods which granted it to us. The Ring of the Lucii's power will never answer my call again, even if this were more than a mere replica.

It rejects those deemed unworthy, so wearing it now...was hardly more than wishful thinking for me.

And you wear it now to, what, serve as a reminder you don't need, like taking your brother's name? To hurt yourself because you can't look at it without remembering that ache?

To remind yourself that you had hope?

I don't...know. I suppose I should have taken it off by now, but...

[But he had no idea how to finish that sentence.]

But it still means something to you. Even if you don't know what. Even if you can't articulate it, which, hey, welcome to the club.

What about it? Even if it does, what can really be done with that? I'm no longer king in title or spirit, and a mere accessory can't fix that.

It doesn't have to--that's not the point. It means something to you when you keep insisting that it shouldn't. Don't you think maybe that alone is pretty important?

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